Congressional Hearings – Week of 4-6-14

Both the House and Senate are in town and the budget is still the big topic with the House scheduled to vote on the FY 2015 budget and the Senate set to ignore it. Still the House has two spending related hearings of note and Senate hearings look at a CSB nomination and the security of the electric grid.

Spending Hearings

Agency	House Approp.	House Oversight	Senate Approp.	Senate Oversight
DHS	3-11-14	3-13-14	3-11-14	3-13-14
DOT	3-12-14	3-12-14	3-13-14
Defense	3-13-14	3-6-14	NA	NA
CG	3-12-14	3-26-14
FEMA	3-26-14	3-25-14		3-13-14
TSA	3-25-14

As you can see from the table above there are no changes to the big ticket spending hearings. This week’s House hearings of spending note address cybersecurity and WMD spending.

The Homeland Security Subcommittee of the House of the House Appropriations Committee will hold a closed hearing on the DHS cybersecurity budget on Tuesday. The witness list includes three witnesses from the DHS National Protection and Programs Directorate:

• Dr. Phyllis Schneck;
• Suzanne Spaulding; and
• Larry Zelvin

The Intelligence, Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on the FY 15 Budget request for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the Chemical Biological Defense Program. Witnesses will include:

• Rebecca K. C. Hersman, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction;

• Kenneth Myers, Director, Defense Threat Reduction Agency;

• Carmen Spencer, Joint Program Executive Officer for Chemical and Biological Defense; and

• Andy Weber, Assistant Secretary for Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs

CSB Nomination

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will be holding a hearing Tuesday that will include the nomination of Manuel H. Ehrlich, Jr., to be a Member of the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.

Electric Grid Security

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will be holding a hearing on Thursday looking at “Keeping the lights on — Are we doing enough to ensure the reliability and security of the US electric grid?” No witness list has yet been posted.